Slowmons: Macho, Macho, man!

Hi all, this is erisia from the NU forums! I've recently become a little more active again, and have noticed the boom in popularity for the Other Metagames forum. So I thought I'd have a go at creating something a little different, and hopefully you'll find the proposition of Slowmons as interesting as I do. Joim is implementing this on his server soon for people to try, so hopefully that'll be ready soon. In the meantime, feel free to theorymon in this thread! Without further ado...

Slowmons!

The basic premise of Slowmons is that the slowest Pokémon would move first in a round of battle, as opposed to the fastest. It's more-or-less the same effect as Trick Room being active for the entire duration of the battle. This concept is pretty straightforward, although it's worth clarifying a few things.

Priority still works as it always does: For example, Extremespeed Dragonite will still go before Reuniclus despite being faster, and thus normally going second.

If the actual move Trick Room is used, then the fastest Pokémon will be able to go first for Trick Room's duration. For example, Alakazam would use Trick Room, and outspeed Conkeldurr on the following turn.

The faster weather starter will start weather for its respective team. For example, Ninetales' Drought would cancel out Hippowdon's Sand Stream in a Turn 1 matchup.

Lagging Tail and Stall will still make their users move last in all circumstances.

All Pokémon must be lv100 to participate. Otherwise the speed creep would be absolutely absurd.

------------

Other than the slowest Pokémon moving first, and Trick Room working slightly differently, this metagame is exactly the same as standard competitive battling. Obviously, with Speed roles being reversed, some moves and abilities will become more/less viable. Here's some good examples of things you might expect (or not!) to see on the battlefield!

Macho Brace now provides any Pokémon that holds it with a huge drop in Speed without any other drawbacks! This basically makes it a better Choice Scarf, without the Choice.

Paralysed Pokémon will almost always be able to move before healthy ones due to the decrease in Speed, so you probably shouldn't be using Thunder Wave

Chlorophyll and similar abilities are obviously no longer helpful.

Curse now acts similarly to a physical Quiver Dance for non-Ghost types. Have fun!

Hammer Arm and V-Create make your Pokémon able to move first against more opponents, making them REALLY good moves.

Since you're aiming to be slower than your opponents, you can now invest those EVs from Speed in other places!

There's plenty more elements to this metagame that make it significantly different to standard play, so make sure to discuss them and identify how they make other Pokémon more or less viable!

------------

Due to increased Speed no longer being desirable, the following Pokémon are now unbanned for this metagame.

Blaziken

Excadrill

Furthermore, the Drizzle + Swift Swim combination ban has been removed. These bans were caused directly by Pokémon having elevated Speed in certain conditions, and so have been removed.

Pokémon such as Darkrai and Shaymin-S aren't going to be unbanned yet... but once this metagame kicks off, we can test them and see if they're still worthy Ubers in this slowness-orientated metagame! If you ask me, I reckon that Darkrai, Deoxys, Genesect, Shaymin-S, Thundurus-I, and Tornadus-T, wouldn't be broken in this metagame, but it'd be worth testing the metagame without them first to be rigorous.

------------

Here's some predictions from me about Pokémon that I think will be highly successful in this metagame! As discussion develops, I'll form a threat list here and keep it updated. I imagine it'd be pretty easy (and very useful!) to come up with Speed tiers for this metagame, so I'll work on them if this really starts to take off.

With excellent Special Attack, one of the lowest Speed stats around, and Magic Guard, Reuniclus is likely to be one of the best offensive threats around! Outslowing most Pokémon without even needing a Macho Brace, Reuniclus is free to use a Life Orb to boost its attacks to even greater power, without even incurring recoil thanks to its ability. An offensive Calm Mind set will destroy faster Pokemon that lack the ability to take its hits, while a defensive Calm Mind set will really tear into stall teams. Honestly, Reuniclus might be a little bit too good, but it's worth testing it out before we make any hasty bans.

Ferrothorn

74 / 94 / 131 / 54 / 116 / 20

On the other end of the spectrum is Ferrothorn, who retains his defensive utility from the OU metagame, but can now move first against almost anything, even when using Leftovers or a Rocky Helmet. While Thunder Wave and Gyro Ball are much less useful in this metagame due to everything wanting to be slow, this just lets Ferrothorn run moves it doesn't normally have room for, such as Stealth Rock and Protect. Ferrothorn can also go on the offensive more easily now, with both Curse and Swords Dance as boosting options, and plenty of space to use them.

Snorlax160 / 110 / 65 / 65 / 110 / 30

While Reuniclus is the best representative of special offense in the tier, Snorlax is arguably the best example of physical offense. With Base 30 Speed being slower than almost the entire tier, alongside fantastic special bulk and solid attacking power, Snorlax can be both an excellent tank and a deadly sweeper. Curse makes it as efficient a tank as you're going to get, while Belly Drum allows Snorlax to threaten a turn 1 sweep if the opponent is unprepared for it. Meanwhile, Return, Earthquake, and Fire Punch have unresisted coverage together and let Snorlax break through the majority of Pokémon with enough boosts.

Conkeldurr105 / 140 / 95 / 55 / 65 / 45

While somewhat overlooked in OU, Conkeldurr is set to sweep the metagame with its low Speed becoming an advantage. It has almost unique access to STAB Hammer Arm, which lets it lower its Speed as it attacks, becoming more and more dangerous as its rampage continues. Furthermore, a powerful Mach Punch makes Conkeldurr a good last resort against Belly Drum Snorlax, while Drain Punch provides it with solid recovery. Both Iron Fist and Guts are excellent ability choices.

Skarmory65 / 80 / 140 / 40 / 70 / 70

The vast majority of threats in this metagame appear to be physical, outside of Reuniclus, so having a "Sturdy" physical defender seems like a great asset for any team. With Base 65 Speed, Skarmory is faster than a lot of the offensive Pokémon in this metagame, meaning it will usually Roost after the opponent attacks, thus not exposing itself to Earthquakes. Ferrothorn is completely walled, as is Escavalier, with both being phased out with Whirlwind. Unfortunately Skarmory fails to hit many Pokémon hard in this metagame outside of Breloom and the frailer Grass and Fighting types, so Rocky Helmet might be a good item choice for ensuring passive damage. With so much of the metagame being blocked, Skarmory will find plenty of opportunities to Roost, mitigating the loss of Leftovers.

Cofagrigus58 / 50 / 145 / 95 / 105 / 30

As stated earlier, Snorlax is going to absolutely ridiculous to deal with. While Cofagrigus can also be quite scary with a bulky Nasty Plot set, a defensive set with Will O Wisp allows you to drop Belly Drum sets out of action in 3-5 turns depending on residual damage. Cofagrigus can Burn most physical attackers before they get a chance to strike back, in a similar way to Sableye in OU, making it a pretty good offensive response to physical boosters as well, with a Nasty Plot / Shadow Ball / HP Fighting / Will O Wisp set. Likewise, it can actually use Haze to stop boosters outright, if it has a defensive EV spread.

Quagsire95 / 85 / 85 / 65 / 65 / 35

With Curse and Belly Drum being ridiculously good on some Pokémon (Snorlax!), Quagsire is a stalwart response to any physical boosters outside of Ferrothorn and the odd offensive Breloom. With Recover, Toxic, and Earthquake and Scald to massacre a lot of common Curse users, Quagsire is equipped to deal with the worst of them.

------------

That's basically all I have to say at the moment; have at it! Slowmons is NOW PLAYABLE on Joim's server. I can't wait to see the discussion that comes from such a quirky metagame! Here's the inaugural battle, and some speed tiers.

Moderator

this seems wack, since a lot of nintendo's methods for balancing pokemon involve lower speed. it'll be interesting to see how this works out, but i'm going to guess we'll have a shitload of mini-ubers running around.

I think Gigalith should be mentioned some where.It has access to 25 speed, which outspeeds everything important except escavalier, and access to 135 attack and 130 defense. It can be used as a rock setter, a curse sweeper (dat physical quiver dance) or just use a choice band to hit hard from the go.

Edit: Quagsire is the best counter to cursers that I've been able to find.

Steelix can afford to run Sheer Force now giving it a ton of versatility. It's 252 Atk Brave Sheer Force Crunch can reliably 3HKO the most defensive Reuniclus and 2HKO the Life Orb variant, although it gets OHKO'd by Offensive Life Orb's Focus Blast. You could also make it max its defenses and use Curse, which would give it something like a 20% chance to survive.

As far as countering Reuniclus? One word: Spiritomb. With only 35 Spe and Nasty Plot, Spiritomb gets incredibly dangerous incredibly quickly, and Reuniclus can't do jack to it. It's low HP and good defenses also make it a great user of Pain Split.

160 / 110 / 65 / 65 / 110 / 30

For serious. Snorlax is not only insanely bulky, it's now one of the fastest things out there, and Curse only makes it more threatening.

75 / 85 / 200 / 55 / 65 / 30

As excellent physical wall, and very "speedy" especially with Curse and strong STAB in Earthquake, as well as Sheer Force to boost its sizable coverage movepool. Steelix is a force to be reckoned with.

50 / 92 / 108 / 92 / 108 / 35

Mentioned it above, but Spiritomb is your one stop shop not only for laughing in Reuniclus' face, but also setting up your own formidable bulky sweep. Spiritomb's offense is one-dimensional, but it does enjoy a massive support movepool.

Speaking of slow, defensive ghosts:

40 / 70 / 130 / 60 / 130 / 25

Dusclops' main problem has always been that it's been slow and Taunt bait. Except Dusclops has Taunt itself, and now it's faster than almost everything. Have fun breaking those defenses with Eviolite.

Say hello to the slowest fully evolved Dragon in the tier. This guy cleans house with ease, with amazing Dragon-Type STAB coming off of a base 120 Attack. Slap a Choice Band on this thing and let it go to work, denting anything that isn't a Steel-Type (most of which are 'faster' than it anyways.). He may very well be the only viable Dragon-Type in Slowmons outside of Trick Room.

Also, is Tailwind going to have reversed effects? That's what I've been wondering, anyway, giving 'slower' mons the support to sweep.

I don't think that any moves will have reversed effects for now. The whole Speed thing is already pretty confusing at the moment, and I'd like to keep the metagame different through one big change instead of lots of small ones.

Curse + Baton Pass from something like Umbreon would probably help you out, although it isn't particularly quick at spreading the boosts.

Also, on the subject of Dragons, bear in mind that anything running a Macho Brace will have half the Speed of anything running a different item. This means that there's actually quite a lot of viable Pokémon with higher Speed values; although being forced to use up an item slot is a bit of a drawback, it's a much better trade-off than the equivalent of Choice Scarf in OU.

Dragonite91 / 134 / 95 / 100 / 100 / 80

Take Dragonite for instance. With minimum investment and a Macho Brace, Dragonite reaches a minimum Speed of 75, which is actually slower than minimum Speed Gastrodon with Leftovers. Meanwhile, it gets to invest in both Attack and Special Attack, and can fire off powerful attacks from both ends of the spectrum with a mixed set. Not having a Life Orb boost is annoying, but then again, Dragonite won't end up breaking its Multiscale as easily either.

Curse Quagsire is easily beaten by Curse / SD Ferrothorn, which sets up on it and can break through with Power Whip. Not to mention stuff like Amoonguss running rampant. I definitely don't think Quagsire will be broken, although it will certainly be helpful as a check to most of the other Curse users in the tier...

Also, I've posted an approximate speed tier for people to make judgements off. Bear in mind that stuff like Macho Brace Dugtrio outslows Life Orb Tyranitar, so it might not be as silly to use high-Speed Pokémon as you think.

Bear in mind that Marowak has to hold Thick Club to be effective. Thus, it cannot run Macho Brace, and as such will be outslowed by anything holding a Macho Brace with a Base Speed of 90 or below. This makes me think that Marowak would still be quite risky, even in this metagame.

Macho brace isn't that good TBH. I see the major threats being slow cursemons, escavalier, amoonguss, ferrothorn, and reuniclus, and all of those are slow enough to outspeed most pokemon with a macho brace.

So... level 1 Aron basically moves first always huh. Also this may lead to the use of level 99 Pokemon to "reverse" speed creep. Seems legit

Click to expand...

Oh dear... I think this is going to be something to ban on principle... I don't want people to be running a lv83 tyranitar to outslow a lv92 tangrowth or whatever... that would get ridiculous very quickly.

Because a better Choice Scarf without the choice lock isn't good?
On another note, Tyranitar is now the fastest Weather setter. This means that it can't always go first against other weathers. And I have my eye on Carracosta who might want some Rain.